"Myspace" Breaking new grounds

Just got the ok to put up some photos in Breaking New Grounds Coffee shop. The theme of my show is going to be taking the art from the walls of my room and putting there. This means assorted frames, different sized images and mediums. There will also be a sort of voyeuristic element in that it is a little peak into something that should be private and designed for myself. I hope to show the absurdness modern networking and exposed the one shred of my life that I had kept private.

late paper

Paul Cezanne and Andy Davis were both pioneers in their approaches to painting. It was through studying Cezanne’s unique methods of capturing a form that would lead the way for modern artist like Davis today. They both do not care for mimicking what was popular, but instead chose to create their own structure of painting. Both these artist study form geometrically and experiment with strange usage of perspective. Although these two artists never met in person, Cézanne’s personal struggles and paintings played vital role in paving the way for artists like Andy Davis and in the shaping of modern art.

Cezanne’s paintings are often seen as a bridge between art of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. It was predominately Cézanne’s later works that inspired the origins of cubism. His pieces had two major characteristics cubists would adopt into their own work; the simplification of his subjects in to geometric shapes and his use of perspective. Cezanne would use spheres, cubes, and cones as his primary tools of abstracting the natural forms in his work. He used thoughtful and exploratory brush strokes to compose these shapes into a distinct, innovative image. It was also his studies of the human viewpoint that cubists found fascinating. Since humans have two eyes he saw there to be two slightly different perspectives at once. He explored depth perception and spatial relations, even flattening the image to the surface that it was on. These two methods drew harsh criticism and were often misinterpreted as a mistake.

Andy Davis does not have the troubled life that Cezan had to live but rather is a happily surfing Californian. Even with these differences in their lifestyles there are remarkable similarities in their works. Andy uses bold brushstrokes and takes a very painterly approach. This image shows one of his most common traits in his works, which is the flattening of the subject. It is the solid green mount with two white squiggles and a sliver of blue that make this picture work so well for me. He only supplies the most minimal amount of information and through color relationship and where they are positioned in the space that the audience is left to piece it together. The surfer and wave boldly are positioned in the foreground of this panting and uses a strange point of perspective. The abstracted and quite uniform water along with the earth looking severe creates an effect that seems as though the surfer is riding the stars of outer space.

It is clear that the geometric and perspective tendencies of Cézanne’s works played a major role in the development of modern painters like Andy Davis.

Alex Machinegun Kelly

I've been scanning some old work in hopes of putting together a better portfolio and stubbled across this gem. I try and always work in a series or create images that work well with one another. This diptych I was really pleased with. I think there is a huge difference between an interesting subject and and interesting photo and here atlest I hope people look at with a facination. The calm expression on the left of an adolescent boy juxtaposed with the rage and unexpected violence on the right. Kind of reminds me of a zombie movie where the scarest people who get turned are always the little girl or grand parents it never is expected that there could be such anger in them but then wam a second later there blood thirsty brain eaters. I also like how this is one of a kind and cant be duplicated. Even the negatives were ruin by the cyanotype process so it makes it really special.

The best thing at the exhibit

One of the best parts of going to a art show is not only the art hanging on the walls but the people around them. The other week we went to the pcac gallery and saw the bfa exhibit and even though I really enjoyed the show it was the girl running the front dest that left the strongest impression on me. She was sitting at her dest littered with piles of magazine clippings and assorted junk along with a glue stick, some scissors and a simple leather bound journal. She was putting together a journal not for some class or to get into grad school but just because she wanted to. It seems like all to often we do work to get by. We take the path that is allotted for us by the school, our parents, and our friends. Even though she is forced to sit at a desk she found something productive, more importantly, something that keeps her sane. Below in my artist statement I wrote "Id rather be taking photos right now" and this partakes to this frustration. Not only that Im assigned to take finite math and restricted to three photo classes but that in my free time I seek little to no productive steps towards becoming a photographer. Classes have conditioned my brain to seeing these works as homework when they should be my alternative to checking facebook. And that even as I write this I will almost just a quickly forget my new aspirations and go to click around addictingames.com

Artest statement

I'd rather be taking photos right now.

Art proposal

Color is something that I always pay close attention to in my work. It’s presence or absences from a piece can have a profound impact its mood, contrast and subject matter. In my photography I typical choose to leave color out of my images. I feel it can take away from the subject and I enjoy the aesthetics of a black and white image. I find my paintings really benefit from use of color but I can’t help but feel a detachment from my paints and the actual subject I’m painting. For my next project I hope to bridge this gap between the colors of my subjects and the paint on my canvas.

Since early cave painting humans have been painting from their surroundings. I hope to recreate this act of painting with what is naturally around me but with a twist, using my subjects themselves. If there is a spilled package of Ketchup in the image then it will be squirted on the canvas. If there happens to be bird crap on a rock then it will get smeared onto the image. Some subjects simply will not rub off on the canvas and these I will use as a sort of pallet knife. The goal of this project is to have a bit of reality rub off on something that is a creation of our minds and a struggle of our hands.

            

            

Table

300 dollars and 12 hours of strait wood working later I finally have finished my table. I'm very pleased with the results aside from the table top not being very functional. It will support a fare amount of coffee mugs but Im still worried about feet and heavier objects. I really like how the stepping down effect came out. I played around with grain, thickness of wood and distance from the top and I think they came together nicely. A last minute addition with the little support beam really helps attract your eye to the top of the piece and then step down from there. The concept of having the most dominant piece of the table being the glass I feel was also a success. 

Painting

I'm wrapping up my painting class this week and I finally made a painting I'm happy with. We were supposed to paint outside but due to bad weather we were stuck painting donuts in the classroom. I was a little bored at painting it accurately and chose to step outside of my comfort zone and portray how I saw it. It looked like this discussing ring of fat that I could only see Homer Simpson liking. I painted it with the gross details I saw in it and added sickly green frosting. To drive the point home I knifed in a pink back drop that I ended up filling in but is not pictured.